Proof of Life
by alittlelikehome
Summary: He came back almost like a stranger with a face she knew so well. She never realized until that day that more than breathing was required for life...Movie-verse


A/N: I'd like to thank everyone who messaged me, reviewed, or just read "And These Pictures Tell A Story"! Needless to say, I was a little wary of entering a new fandom, but you made it pretty sweet! I appreciate you all, and I hope you enjoy my latest. Just an odd little nugget of something that has been nagging at me. Pepper didn't see the reactor until she swapped it? So here it be! As the line goes, I own nothing…bleak.

I knew that he had been different, a real, live changed man since he came back from that cave. His lecherous grins were fewer, and the space where copious inappropriate comments once lingered are filled with pregnant pauses and deep sighs. The scheduled slots once penciled for dry cleaning and disposal, are used to play quiet attendance to the ghost of Tony Stark that lived in his shop. I could accept, and maybe even enjoy this, until today.

He called me down, as usual, to play unwilling nurse. For the first time ever I laid eyes on the Arc Reactor he had forged in Afghanistan. It's not that I didn't know of it's existence, or had missed the glowing ring, but when pressed that first night after Rhodey mentioned it he had blown me off. Told me it was "a big fancy magnet" and then added half-heartedly that it allowed his heart to go pitter patter when I came in to scold him like the naughty boy he was. When I asked to see it, he ran me off by saying that I had to take my shirt off if I wanted him to. Figuring I knew him well enough, I let it go. He usually always told me anything of real importance anyways.

How wrong was I?

Like a slap in the face, I found out just how little I knew about this Tony. Wrist-deep in his chest, I found out the hard way just how important that "fancy magnet" was. Then, with a shy tremor, he laid out my attributes-for once not physical-and conceded that I was truly all he had. For a moment, there was an odd charge of intimacy and eroticism in his words coupled with my actions. With one searing look, I was knocked cleanly off my high horse.

The rest of the evening, I began to seriously consider what else I didn't know. I was almost drowning in what felt like an epic betrayal There was a man in the house bearing his face, but everything else was so utterly changed. How was I supposed to process this? What had they done to him? Most importantly, was I even ready to know? My breath hitched just thinking that my Tony might be dead after all.

I wasn't too sure how long I had been standing there, staring at his back, before he noticed. His shoulders were so tense, leaning over some what-not he was working. Suddenly, I just wanted to reach out and touch him. In fact, I almost succeeded until he broke me from my reverie.

"Did you need something, Pepper?"

"Yeah."

"And what would that be?"

Something in me snapped into place, honestly making me believe I didn't know what I wanted until he asked. With one hand barely tapping a taut shoulder, I sighed, "Proof of life."

He turned around quizzically, like I was telling some sort of joke. He even laughed as he asked me, "What kind of proof do you need?"

I slid in beside him on the workbench, so that I might fully regard the new reactor lighting up his chest.

"I knew you so well, and now I know nothing. I never expected you to come back whole, but now I'm not even sure you are alive besides the fact you're breathing."

Tony stared at me long and hard, then finally took my limp hand and placed it in his chest. For a while, it was pure silence except the vibrations tingling at my fingertips. Quite clearly I could ascertain the vague thump of his heart layered under the steady hum of the reactor. Under that, his chest rose and fell with respiration. His skin was warm to the touch, and awkwardly, I just wanted to feel more. As if in a trance, my fingers slipped to the hem of his worn out top, and danced forward to seek skin. Right before I could make contact, my hand was pushed resolutely away.

"You got your proof, Pepper. Now leave me alone."

The way he shut me down, so similar to his response to my tears on the tarmac, only served to make me want to fight him. I drew myself closer to him, daring him to push me away again. I clutched the front of his shirt, attempting to tear it way.

"Why, Tony? "

"Because there's nothing to see, and nothing to say. Back off."

"You never told me about Afghanistan. I'm all you've got, and you couldn't even tell me the truth about the secret literally buried in your chest? It makes me wonder, do you really trust me as much as you say? Or am I really just it, and any confidence you share is because there is to one else to hear?"

He jumped off the bench like I had struck him.

"You're really starting to piss me off."

"Good! Makes up for all the times you pissed me off!"

He jerked forward and pulled me roughly to him. A sinister snarl weaved it's way through his words, as he whispered nastily, "Me pissing you off is a million miles better than the truth about Afghanistan. Take it or leave it, that is all you are getting. Leave!"

"Make me.'

"Damn it!"

A barrage of tools and metal pieces flew from the table, as he shoved it violently away. In my heart, I knew that the table had gotten the brunt of the anger he felt towards my insistence.

Unshed tears lined my lashes, when he finally turned around, his shirt long gone.

"No tears now, Pepper. Time to see how defiantly alive I am."

I was pressed to him once again, his hands placing mine against the map of scars along his chest. Of their own volition, my fingers traced each tear in his once perfect skin. My ears burned against the truths he whispered about hot coals and a man named Yinsen. He described how each specifically designed barb truly did it's job, just as he designed. Shock registered itself, my mind almost refusing to believe he had been attacked by his own weapons. And when he wept, I wept with him. In a way we both mourned the loss of what we once had.

Suddenly, it felt necessary to share.

"I never cried for you."

He looked at me curiously through reddened eyes.

"What do you mean?"

"I never cried for you until the day you came home. I was pretty much ordered, repeatedly even, to accept that you were gone and I didn't. I knew you were too stubborn to just die."

The light that had been so long missing, slowly switched back on.

"How fierce of you! I like it!"

"God, only you would derive that out of a heartfelt confession."

"It's just a pleasant thought.! My ever faithful Pepper keeping the fires burning at home, eagerly awaiting my return!"

"First of all, I am not yours. Second of all, there are no home fires. I just know you."

Some of the earlier shyness crept back into his eyes.

"Exactly," he replied. "Changed or not, you will always know me, even better than myself."

His words burned and twirled mercilessly in mind as I went home. So many emotions were scattered in that workshop today, that I almost felt as if there was nothing left. But long, long after the tears had dried I realized for better or for worse, I had proof of life.

And, really? Did I need more?


End file.
